Stander Symposium Projects

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  Public Safety Advocates - Bridging the Gap Between Students and Police at the University of Dayton

  Huthayfa Usman

  The 21st century requires police departments to be a part of the community that they police. The Public Safety Advocate program started by UD Criminal Justice major Huthayfa Usman in Fall 2018 attempts to bridge the gap between students and police at the University of Dayton. Employing techniques of Community Oriented Policing (COP) based on President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the Public Safety Advocate program works on community problem solving and engagement.

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  Queer Borders and Belongings: Reparative Storytelling from El Paso

  Mary McLoughlin

  At its best, queer theory exposes the ways in which reproductive heteronormativity structures a social order around gendered and relational roles of dominance and submission, but often queer theorists respond to the oppressions they identify with arguments advocating for withdrawal and alienation from the relationships they deem to be damaging. This project takes a different approach by using storytelling to explore how queer theory can go beyond just identifying what is broken about our world, and—instead—offer an embodied queer ethic centered on mending wounds caused by social division and making queer lives livable. Guided by stories from interviews I conducted with community members living at the border in El Paso, I first investigate the role reproductive heteronormativity plays in shaping hierarchical and patriarchal notions of citizenship, immigration policy, community organization, and national belonging, and then I look to the ways queerness—and the love it makes possible—enables alternate and liberatory ways of forming relationships and being together.

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  Race and Culture in American Factory: A Case Study

  Emily A. Callam

  This case study focuses on the 2019 documentary American Factory and examines the issues of race and culture through the ethical lens of social justice. The Academy Award-winning documentary directed by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar introduces viewers to the transition of a large factory in Dayton, Ohio, from General Motors Company to Fuyao Glass America, a Chinese company. The film attempts to capture an all-encompassing view of this transition as it depicts the effects it has on everyone from the CEO of the company to both American and Chinese workers on the factory floor. Lifestyles and workplace cultures clash as the productivity levels of those in the United States does not nearly reach that of China.

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  Racial Disenfranchisement and Its Impact on Political Participation in the United States

  Cierra Dei Stewart

  In the United States, the ability to participate in our political system, andspecifically the power to cast a vote, is the cornerstone of our nation and whatunites us as a democracy. When this power is lost, one loses the ability toshape policies and political agendas in their community. However, manygroups, particularly minority groups, have historically faced substantialobstacles to voting in the form of government-dictated racial discrimination,also known as voter suppression laws. Using the lens of history, this projectexplores how modern voting and electoral structures (e.g., voter ID laws,redistricting, felon disenfranchisement, etc.) may lead to voter suppression ofracial minorities, and how that suppression impacts the participation andrepresentation of these groups in politics and government.

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  Reaching Out, Encountering Dayton, Acting with Others, Leading Together: Assessing College Student Experiences in a Community Engagement Program

  Lily Hannibal

  The inclusion of community engaged learning opportunities for students is becoming more prevalent among institutions of higher education. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of REAL Dayton, a community engagement program at a mid-sized Catholic and Marianist university. REAL Dayton encourages students to create sustained relationships and lasting connections with the broader community. I use a multi-method approach (pre/post surveys and semi-structured interviews) to assess how community engagement within the city of Dayton shapes University of Dayton students' attitudes towards and perceptions of Dayton. I explore participants’ previous levels of community engagement and interaction with Daytonians, how they understand connectivity between the University of Dayton and the city of Dayton, the perceptions that participants have of the city, their knowledge of the city, their likelihood of future engagement, and the effectiveness of the program. The findings demonstrate how students understand their community engagement experiences, what impact it has on them, and to what extent community engagement constructs students’ perceptions. This research will further enhance understandings of the effects and outcomes of community engagement programs on students.

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  Real Time Hand Gesture Recognition for 3D World

  Bhrugvish Timirbhai Vakil

  Gestures are very important to convey our self to each other since the dawn of human civilization. Our proposal focuses on detecting human hand gestures so that virtual environment machine can interpret it easy. This will enable us to communicate in virtual reality world using hand gesture. Some other application of our proposal includes body language interpretation, sign language interpretation etc. We address the highly challenging problem of real-time 3D hand tracking based on a monocular RGB-only sequence. Our tracking method combines a convolutional neural network with a kinematic 3D hand model, such that it generalizes well to unseen data, is robust to occlusions and varying camera viewpoints, and leads to anatomically plausible as well as temporally smooth hand motions. This project will help us to interact with virtual world using our hand gestures with the help of predefined rules. This project can be use as method to communicate with virtual lenses and interact with them. It can also we used in virtual field like Education, medical. Imagine if you are doctor and imagine you need to perform intricate surgery you can develop the object of your surgery in a virtual world and interact with it in using your hand gesture.

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  Redetermination of the Spectral Dependence of the Verdet Coefficients of Terbium Gallium Garnet and Potassium Terbium Fluoride

  Michael Josef Mueller

  Terbium Gallium Garnet and Potassium Terbium Fluorideare paramagnetic materials used as optical isolators which prevent feedback to the pump laser in high power laser systems via the Faraday effect. The Verdet constant is a measure of the strength of the Faraday effect and was measured by exposing samples of materials to a magnetic field as a linearly polarized diode laser beam passed through the samples. The change of direction of the linear polarization was measured as a function of the magnetic field at wavelengths between 0.405 microns and 1.55 microns and the Verdet coefficients of Terbium Gallium Garnet and Potassium Terbium Fluoride were determined.

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  Refractive Index of Photo-thermo-refractive Glass

  Zayne M. Parsons

  Volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) are spectrally-selective elements used in spectral beam combining, which is used to combine multiple beams with slightly different wavelengths into a single output. VBGs are created by exposing photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass to interference patterns of UV laser radiation, and then annealing the glass, producing a modulated refractive index. The diffraction efficiency of these gratings is dependent on the refractive index modulation amplitude. We report the refractive indices of unprocessed and processed PTR glass at wavelengths from 0.4 to 4.6 microns and discuss their uses in specifying VBGs for laser beam combining.

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  Refugee Family Mental Health: Interventions, Programs and Social Connection

  Elizabeth Henninger

  The purpose of this study is to assess refugee family mental health and programs that can be implemented to intercept the breakdown of social capital due to mental health disparities. I analyze the data from various peer reviewed sources to obtain critical information towards combating social disconnection due to mental health imbalances. This work emphasizes the importance of combating severe levels of mental illness among refugee populations by connecting refugees with community resources and services.

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  Resin Transfer Molding (RTM): Analytical and Numerical Approach Development and Verification for a Linear and Radial Flow Model using PAM-RTM

  Khalid Aldhahri

  Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) processes are among the most commonly used processes in composite manufacturing, including resin transfer modeling (RTM) and vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM). These types of processes provide several advantages, such as reduced cost, faster cycle time, and efficient part fabrication compared to autoclave molding. RTM is increasingly used to produce composite materials for several applications, especially in the aerospace industry. It offers mass production of composite parts with simple and complex geometry and with small to medium sizes. RTM involved four essential steps to produce the composite part: loading the fiber preform into the mold, injecting the mold with resin, resin curing, and composite demolding. The final composite properties are affected by these steps of production, especially the mold filling and resin curing steps. Numerical process models offer potential benefits for use in LCM, such as improving the mold design, optimizing the location of resin injection gates and vents, controlling the position of the resin flow front, and improving part quality. The main thrust of this study was to demonstrate the effectiveness of simulation applied to RTM for understanding how to choose the right location of injection and vent ports, cure development, and monitoring the position of resin. Numerical modeling allows for initial viewing of the expected flow patterns and cure profiles before the actual resin injection experiment. The commercial PAM-RTM software is used to simulate key process variables, including resin velocity, pressure distribution, filling time, and process parameters. These results will be validated with analytical solutions using Darcy’s Law applied to linear and circular flow models. The model example will be used to compare results of these two approaches for flat panel molds and using two different resin injection strategies for each: constant pressure and constant flow rate.

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  Resolving the Molecular Mechanisms by Which DNA Mutations Alter the Function of a Genetic Switch

  Sarah Marie Adams, Michael Weinstein

  Animal genomes likely possesses anywhere from tens of thousands to more than a million mutations that are genetic baggage from DNA replication mistakes or “mutations” that occurred in the past. Each mutation can either improve, reduce, or have no effect on fitness. Moreover, the effects of such mutations can depend on the presence or absence of other mutations, so called epistatic interactions. A goal of evolutionary-developmental biology research is to identify the mutations responsible for the evolution of form and function, and to understand the molecular mechanisms of their effects. This goal remains out of reach, as the effects of mutations and epistatic interactions are difficult to predict without knowing the function of the DNA sequence they reside in. This difficulty is heightened for mutations occurring in cis-regulatory element sequences that act as switches to control gene transcription. We are using a fruit fly model to test hypotheses about the molecular mechanisms by which mutations alter a genetic switch’s activity, and whether these function-altering mutations are subjected to the tyranny of epistatic interactions. Specifically, we are investigating the Drosophila melanogaster dimorphic element that is a transcription-regulating switch for the bric-à-brac genes. Three mutations in the dimorphic element were identified that individually alter the level of bric-à-brac transcription. The presence or absence of epistatic interactions will be determined by measuring the activity of dimorphic elements from related species that have been engineered to possess the Drosophila melanogaster mutations. I will also test the hypothesis that these mutations impart their effects by creating or destroying binding sites for proteins known as transcription factors. The results will provide a sorely needed example where an understanding of molecular mechanisms bridges the gap between a cis-regulatory element’s DNA sequence and it’s in vivo function.

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  Role of calcium signaling in Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration in a Drosophila model of Alzheimer’s disease

  Dena M. Schaeffer, Catherine Jean Yeates

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects more than five million individuals in the United States and is the sixth leading cause of death. While there is currently no cure for the disease, it is a highly investigated topic of research. Aberrant calcium signaling has also been implicated in cancer and other neurological diseases besides AD. The Drosophila melanogaster eye model is an excellent system to study AD due to the highly conserved genetic machinery shared between flies and humans. A transgenic fly model of AD was generated, where the GAL4/UAS system was developed to ectopically express high levels of human Aβ42 peptides in the differentiating photoreceptor neurons in the fly eye. This system is used to determine whether modulating the function of the calcium signaling pathway can modify Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration. We used RNAi to knock down six components of the calcium signaling pathway (Stim^RNAi, SERCA^RNAi, ORAI^RNAi, Inx2^RNAi, IP3R^RNAi, and Plc 21C^RNAi) in an Aβ42 background in the eye and observed the effects in both eye antennal imaginal discs and adult eyes. Similarly, we overexpressed four UAS components of the calcium signaling pathway (Stim, ORAI, SERCA, IP3R). Our results showed evidence that knocking down these components of the pathway may ameliorate the neurodegeneration mediated by Aβ42. Likewise, overexpressing the components furthered our evidence that the calcium signaling pathway has a role in AD. Our research further implicates intracellular calcium signaling in neurodegenerative disorders. Further research will determine the molecular mechanisms linking calcium signaling with Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration.

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  Role of Hippo and Ecdysone Receptor Signaling in the Regulation of dronc

  Karishma Sanjay Gangwani

  The Hippo pathway is an evolutionarily conserved pathway that regulates organ size and tissue homeostasis in Drosophila and mammals. The pathway functions by regulating the nuclear availability of transcriptional cofactor Yorkie (Yki), mammalian YAP, which is regulated by the activity of a core kinase cascade comprising the serine threonine kinases Hippo (Hpo) and Warts (Wts) and their accessory proteins. Yki binds with transcription factors like Scalloped (Sd) or Homothorax (Hth) to regulate target genes involved in cell proliferation and survival. Downregulation of the Hpo pathway causes increased cell proliferation and overgrowth, whereas hyperactivation of this pathway leads to cell death due to activation of caspases. Caspase proteins are cysteine aspartic proteases which play essential roles in cellular signaling and development via apoptosis. We showed that the initiator caspase dronc (mammalian Caspase 9) is a transcriptional target of Yki. We found that loss of Hippo signaling leads to downregulation of dronc expression, whereas downregulation of Sd resulted in upregulation of dronc expression. We also found that known binding partner of Sd like E2F1 is also involved in regulating dronc expression. Earlier studies have shown that dronc expression is regulated by the Ecdysone receptor (EcR) signaling pathway and mapped a EcR regulatory element on dronc promoter. We found that depletion of EcR or its corepressors like Smrter caused upregulation of dronc expression. Overexpression of Taiman (Tai) a binding partner of EcR and Yki also upregulated dronc expression. We also show that Tai-Yki interaction may not be required for dronc regulation. We hypothesize that dronc expression is regulated by the Hippo and EcR signaling pathways. Here, we present our work on the regulation of dronc by the Hippo and EcR signaling pathways, and its implications on development.

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  Saints and Sinners? The Catonsville Nine and Cultural Change Within U.S. Catholicism

  Jens Mueller

  “The crisis is of such enormous extent and depth, that all solutions based on the sanity and health and recoverability of current structures are quickly proven wrong, untimely, unmanageable, bureaucratically infected: the same old kettle of fish, stinking worse than ever in the boiling juices of change.” This is how the fugitive Daniel Berrigan described the state of American society in 1970. At a time when the United States, as he said, was “going downhill and pellmell, into a dark age, a progress led by neanderthals armed to teeth”, the Berrigans stood up “to open the eyes of more and more of our friends” to lead others into “the saving act of resistance.” He offered this statement only two years after the fateful actions of the Catonsville Nine. Yet, what caused such actions and statements? And how was it received throughout American society?I argue that the events of this group had deep cultural implications for the state of Catholicism. Specifically, it symbolized a divide in US Catholic identity, something which we call nowadays simply “left” and “right”. While some people ecstatically supported the cause for social justice and radical pacifism, others seemed to reject the social actions Catholics took part in. In addition, the Catonsville Nine exemplify a broader trend namely the rupture of the American Catholic subculture.

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  Semantic Segmentation on Aerial Images for Building Damage Assessment

  Sai Nikhil Reddy Mandhada

  Extreme weather events impact large areas in a very short time, resulting in significant damages on many residential houses. After disasters, a recovery process should be promptly implemented to recover damaged local communities, but there are too many structures to be repaired with a limited number of resources. In the post disaster phase, detailed information—such as a degree of damage and house types—is required to automate disaster recovery planning and execution. However, previous studies have not investigated a method that can generate information with adequate details required to automate disaster recovery planning. To fill the knowledge gap, this study aims at recognizing building objects, detecting building damages, and measuring the extent of damage to individual building properties from aerial image data collected by drones. Semantic segmentation is employed to recognized buildings and their damages. The degree of damage will be assessed by a set of rules reflecting current manual assessment guidelines. This work is expected to help reduce a large portion of the current manual process in assessing the degree of damage for damaged buildings, thereby facilitating rapid disaster recovery.

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  Semi Supervised Learning for Accurate Segmentation of Roughly Labeled Pathological Data

  Rachel Rajan

  Recent advancements in medical imaging research have shown that digitized high-resolution microscopic images combined with deep learning architectures have been able to generate promising results better than pathologists in the field of pathology diagnosis. But, for supervised deep learning techniques, the unavailability of labeled data has limited applications for accurate medical image segmentation. Hence, we propose an enhanced adversarial learning approach in semi-supervised segmentation for incremental training of our deep learning-based model to utilize unlabeled data in achieving better learning performance. Studies reveal that unlabeled data combined with small amount of labeled data can improve the overall performance considerably. Since most of the existing methods use weakly labeled images, our proposed technique utilizes unlabeled instances to improve the segmentation model. Experiments on two publicly available datasets such as PASCAL VOC2012 and UCSB Bio-Segmentation Benchmark dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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  Sense of Belonging of International Students in Living Learning Communities

  Paola Ortiz

  As higher education institutions increase international student recruitment and enrollment, one best practice for international student retention and connectedness is the creation of international living communities. This qualitative narrative inquiry explores the sense of belonging of international students in two living learning communities at a small private institution in the Midwest. Students shared their experiences in two different living learning communities on campus focused on intercultural development and the relation they had on their sense of belonging to the institution. This study provides suggestions for the current programs similar to these communities around the nation.

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  Sex Differences in Relation to Affect and Social versus Non-Social Stress on Olfactory Functioning

  Sahar Kaouk, Madeline P. Scherer

  Evolutionarily, olfaction, or the sense of smell, was a way to detect threats (Soudry et al., 2011) and is highly involved various psychological processes including emotion (Chen & Dalton, 2005) and stress (Hoenen et al., 2017). This project aims to assess the biological sex differences in affective response to social and non-social stress, and how this then affects odor detection sensitivity, identification, hedonic ratings, and intensity ratings. This project will further the understanding of sex differences in regard to olfactory functioning, emotional regulation, in various stress conditions. Equal numbers of male and female undergraduate participants recruited from University of Dayton SONA System (N = 90) will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: social stress or non-social stress. The participant will wear a chest heart rate monitor for the duration of the experiment. Average heart rate will be collected throughout. Participants will first complete a pre-condition administration of questionnaires and olfactory testing. Participants assigned to the social stress condition will participate in a modified version of the arithmetic section of the Trier Social Stress Test (Allen et al., 2017). Participants will be given ten minutes sequentially subtract 13 from 1,022 aloud and in front of a confederate and a camera prop. If the participant makes a mistake, the confederate will bluntly stop the participant and instruct them to start from the beginning thus inducing feelings of social evaluation. Participants assigned to the non-social stress condition will also have ten minutes to subtract the number 13 from 1,022 however on a sheet of blank paper. They will be instructed to do the arithmetic as quickly as possible without making mistakes. Following either stress-task, participants will compete post-condition olfactory testing and questionnaires.

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  Signs to Speech

  Yashesh Dinesh Bharti

  There are softwares which translate from any language to any language, however, the promise of the futuristic sign language decoders have always been far away from being a day to day reality,Proposing a Neural Network based Sign language to speech translator which purports to translate sign language in real-time to text or speech as the user gestures. For people in the Deaf community, this tool could come in handy as it will not demand any extra hardware and use a camera (Like the ones present on the phone) to detect the pose and gestures.

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  Smelling How to Feel: The Role of Ambient Odor and Olfaction in Affective Experience and Evaluation

  Michael Alex Lee, Juliana Mitchell, Wyatt Kaiser

  Olfaction, or the sense of smell, and emotion have long been recognized as closely related. Previous research has found that odors are not only capable of influencing our mood, but can also affect the way we evaluate different types stimuli that are associated with them. However, no study to date has examined how odors can influence the way we evaluate visual stimuli, nor considered the relationship between odor’s ability to influence mood as well as affective evaluation. This study’s goal was to address this gap in the literature. For this study, we had participants complete questionnaires about their demographic information, current mood, and the affective impact of odor for them. Then, we had them view a series of images and rate them for positive valence, negative valence, and intensity. Once they viewed all the images, participants then relocated to another room that was prepared with a pleasant odor, unpleasant odor, or no odor. Participants then completed another questionnaire regarding their mood following odor exposure, and then viewed and rated another set of images, which contained both new images and the same images they viewed earlier. We hypothesized that participant’s reported mood state would change after being exposed to a pleasant or unpleasant odor, that their ratings of positive and negative valence for the images would change after being exposed to a pleasant or unpleasant odor, and that the change in image ratings is mediated by their change in mood due to the odor. While most hypotheses were not supported, we found unexpected changes in mood and ratings over time between odor exposure conditions. This study provides additional nuance to our understanding of the relationship between olfactory and affective processing, as well as creates opportunities for building our understanding of the relationship between the two domains in the future.

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  “SMH White Gays”: A Netnographic Study of Hegemonic Masculinity and Internalized Homophobia among Queer Men of Color on Twitter

  Ryan Scott

  This study takes an in-depth look into the way that gay men of color create spaces for themselves on social media. Focusing on the social media platform Twitter, I explore the dialogue around identity among gay men and the obstacles to creating inclusive spaces (i.e. internalized homophobia, anti-effeminacy and racial preferences). To study these trends within Twitter posts, I preform a content analysis of 15 posts and their comments/replies, from October 2019 to February 2020, by self-identified gay men and look for themes of internalized homophobia, hegemonic masculinity or exclusion of people of color. The key idea of this study is that even within marginalized communities, there is still an emphasis on being able to conform to normative identities. I take a closer look at how queer men of color navigate Twitter to create their online personas and understand their intersecting identities. With the growing presence of social media in our lives, it is important to see social media as the new frontier for studying human interaction. While this study focuses on the creation of spaces for gay men, the sociological forces at play in this research could be applied to any group.

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  Social and Emotional Support for Siblings of Children with ASD

  Alison Jane Kolber-Jamieson

  Siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently experience a higher level of social-emotional issues when compared to siblings of typically developing children. This study examined data gathered from individual interviews with siblings of individuals with autism ASD. Participants described social and emotional issues that arose from living with an individual on the autism spectrum, what systems of support they accessed and benefitted from, and barriers to competent family-centered care. In exploring the social and emotional issues faced by siblings of individuals with ASD, analysis of the interview transcripts revealed five broad themes: anxiety/stress, depression, guilt, isolation, and anger/resentment. Exploration of the variables that influence these social and emotional issues (systems of support and barriers) reveal themes related to factors at school, factors at home, and factors within the community. Recommendations and implications for practice are provided for school personnel to support siblings of students on the autism spectrum.

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  Social Media and The Multiple In-Group Identity of the English Premier League International Supporter Clubs

  Nicholas Kerver

  This study addresses the use of social media by independent organizations – supporters clubs, which associate with sport teams to connect with fans. Arsenal America is a group of more than 70 supporters clubs ran independently from Arsenal FC across the United States. The organization was first founded in 2001 and was officially recognized in 2005. Club events are held for every home and away match at local restaurants and bars within each club’s region. While many of the events revolve around socialization between supporter club members, other events are held throughout the year including charity and philanthropy events. Each supporters club in Arsenal America has at least a Twitter and Facebook page, with the vast majority holding both. The purpose of this study is to show the use of social media by each Arsenal America organization in terms of content creation. A content analysis will be performed to examine the parameters which categorize the content delivered through both Twitter and Facebook by Arsenal America clubs. This study implicates the tactics revolving around content which can connect fans through an in-group identity, which can help fans feel both connected with their fellow fans, the local place identity, and the sport organization itself.

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  Social Media Content Labelling Toolkit

  Allen Mathew Madathil

  The proposed project is a graphical user interface for annotating recorded data on the social media composing process. This data can be used to learn about human behavioral patterns. Although this application was built for Windows, but it can be easily scaled to other platforms like Android as it was developed using Java. The Graphical User Interface allows the user to load the video files and label the video segments according to the actions performed. Labels are divided into two categories like action label and verbal label which are further subdivided into many categories. There are around 90 labels to choose from. For each action, the start time and end time are recorded. The labels along with the start time and end time of the actions are saved in a text file. The name of this text file matches the video file so whenever the user reopens the same video, previously saved labels are retrieved from the file which helps the user to continue where he left off. Another feature is that the application has a time-label bar which helps to visualize the labels with its corresponding time frames. Apart from learning about human behavioral patterns this tool can be modified and used for many other research works that require video labeling.

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  Soft Robot Actuator Design for Digital Light Processing

  Dillon Montgomery Balk

  This research involves the design, simulation and fabrication of novel soft robot actuators. Since the 1970s, robot design engineers have been experimenting soft materials in robotics components. Inspired by natural organisms, “soft robotics” involves the integration of a soft polymer material into a mechanism in order to achieve a variety of configurations. Pneumatically actuated by air through hollow channels within, a soft robotics component allows for very large, non-linear, displacements compared to classical rigid body components. These attributes allow soft robotics to have potential biomedical, industrial, and rescue applications. This research project involves designing and simulating various soft robotic actuators to mimic primitive motions, including twisting, bending, elongating, and angular displacement. The various actuators can be assembled to form serial and parallel chains to perform basic robotic tasks, such as search-and-retrieval or pick and place operations. Digital light processing (DLP) technology is an appealing fabrication technique because it is able to create very intricate parts with high resolution. Utilizing UDRI’s DLP capabilities, experiments with physical prototypes will calibrate and validate the simulation results.